Arts Integration Strategies

Use creativity in the curriculum to address learning standards.

In this dynamic program, you’ll discover how to use the power of the arts to ensure that all students succeed. Through music, drama, visual arts, storytelling, and poetry, you'll learn strategies that will lead to increased student engagement and achievement. Develop new approaches to enliven and deepen your current teaching practice. Get advanced training in integrating the arts across the curriculum.

You'll learn strategies that link to universal design for learning, differentiated instruction, and the Common Core standards. And that provide you with exciting ways to meet the needs of learners with different learning styles, cultures, and languages.

Louise has worked in arts in education for over 25 years. In 2005, she launched the Children's Afghan Songbook Project, an internationally recognized project that has helped to preserve and redistribute traditional Afghan children's songs that were almost eradicated during Taliban rule. In 2016, Louise was awarded the Champion of Education Award by Canadian Women for Afghan Women.

The degree employers are looking for.

Lesley graduates go on to rewarding careers in public and private schools, charter schools, and beyond. That's because our programs are ranked #1 for preparing teachers with the skills Massachusetts employers are seeking, including:

Putting theory into practice with an emphasis on instruction and assessment.

Reflecting on lesson effectiveness and sharing best practices to improve student learning.

Applying innovative, progressive, cutting-edge approaches.

Using varied practices to help each student meet or exceed state and local standards.

Recognizing technology as an integral component of the teaching and learning process.

Faculty

Maureen Creegan-Quinquis

Associate Professor, Department Chair

Maureen Creegan-Quinquis is department chair for the STEAM programs in the Graduate School of Education. She is also the director of the Master of Education in Teacher of Visual Arts licensure programs and the arts in education programs. She works in painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, and digital. Her work appears on the covers of "Sites," a French journal published by Routledge-Taylor & Francis. Maureen exhibits at a variety of galleries. Most recent exhibits include Boston Drawing Collaborative at the Bernard Toale Gallery and Ward Nasse Gallery in New York.

July 2017: Presenter at Creativity at the Core Summer Institute, California County Superintendents Education Services Association. Exploring Text through Visual Arts and Poetry

Education

Michael Kemeh

Assistant Professor

During his post-graduate teacher training for his Postgraduate Certificate in Education from University of Leeds, UK, Michael Kemeh, known as Shabaash, taught in British secondary schools and colleges, and has taught at the University of Ghana, where he had coordinated numerous theatre for development outreach projects connected with issues on health, adult literacy, teen pregnancy, and women's socio-economic improvement.

Shabaash loves sharing his expertise in integrating drama into classroom curriculum with educators. He also has great passion for using "theatre for development" for education, mobilization, and improvement of the lives of people in marginalized communities. He successfully adapted this theatre technique to address multicultural and social issues through workshops in elementary, middle, and high schools in the states of Washington, Arizona, and Kansas.

Louise Pascale

Professor

Louise Pascale is Professor and Director of the Integrated Teaching through the Arts (ITA) program at Lesley University. A musician and music educator, she has worked in the field of arts in education for over 25 years as an artist-educator and classroom teacher.

Louise served for eight years as Education Director for VSA arts Massachusetts, an organization that develops arts-based teaching strategies so students with and without disabilities can learn together more effectively. She is also the founder of the non-profit, The Children’s Afghan Songbook & Literacy Project, an organization that strives to preserve and redistribute traditional Afghan children’s songs and folktales that were almost completely eradicated due to the devastation that has afflicted Afghanistan over the past 30 years. To date, over 50,000 copies of two songbooks, Qu Qu Qu Barg-e-Chinaar and Awasana See Sa, made up of traditional children’s songs and accompanying teacher’s guides have been distributed to elementary schools and orphanages across Afghanistan.

Recently, a new book of traditional Afghan children’s folktales, Bood Nabood (Once Upon a Time) was published and is currently being distributed to schools, orphanages and mobile libraries in 15 Provinces in Afghanistan with the help of Afghan educational organizations. In 2014 Louise presented a TEDx talk, “Returning Music to the Children of Afghanistan” detailing the story and cultural significance of this project. Louise’s work is internationally recognized and has been featured on BBC and NPR.

She has presented keynotes and professional development workshops for teachers and administrators across the United States and abroad on the topic of the arts and education. Her latest book, Integrating the Arts across Content Areas, which she co-authored with Lisa Donovan, provides a practical guide for educators to implement arts-based strategies to engage students and enhance their learning across the content areas.

Education

BA, University of California
M.Ed., Lesley University
PhD, Lesley University